Welcome

The aim of this Home Education blog is to share books, games and resources that I have found useful and fun in home educating my children. If you have a resource to share, please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.
Categories
- Activity
- Books
- Curriculum
- Free
- Games
- homeschooling
- Suppliers
- Uncategorized
Blogroll
Books We Enjoyed

By the Great Horn Spoon - My Review Trollogy! - My Review Danny Champion of the World Indian in the Cupboard When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Paper Rulers

Posted on July 21, 2008
Filed Under Free | 2 Comments

Geography for Kids I can NEVER find a ruler or a tape measure when I need one! (Of course, they are all over the place when I don’t!).

But finally - a solution! Printable paper rulers. This site has got lots of them - one foot rulers, metersticks, yardsticks.

Worth remembering next time you are desperate to measure something!

The Periodic Table of Videos

Posted on July 18, 2008
Filed Under Free | 1 Comment

Have just found these fantastic videos from the University of Nottingham. Each video is about a chemical element of the periodic table.

Well worth watching! Many thanks to Dawn for telling me about this (via her blog), so I could tell you!!

Storybook writing

Posted on July 17, 2008
Filed Under Books, Free | 2 Comments

I have found this great site for children to write their own storybook.

Tikatok is an online program in which kids can type a story and add illustrations (they can be uploaded). But the great thing about this site is that the book can be then be viewed in an interactive way.

You can have the book printed professional and sent to you (they do ship internationally), but I can’t see a way to print the book yourself. On the plus side, there is a way to put the book into a blog.

I think mine will really enjoy the professional online look of these books and I think it would be great to write a book together about our currrent homeschooling project. Or use it myself to write them a specially tailored language or reference book.

Enjoy!

Writing your own computer games.

Posted on July 17, 2008
Filed Under Games | Leave a Comment

My son has wanted to be able to write his own computer games for ages - but I struggled to find some software he could use easily.

Read my review of the software I found to do it at Homeschooling-ideas.com.

Flat Travellers Geography

Posted on June 4, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Jenny has sent me this great idea for geography. She says;

“We are just getting involved in ‘Flat Travellers’. It is based upon the book ‘Flat Stanley’ where a boy is flattened and can send himself anywhere in an envelope, he travels the world. The children make their own ‘flat traveller’, laminate it and then send it to a host family with a journal which the family then complete and return with some mementoes, pictures, photos etc of what they have been getting up to with their flat traveller.

The journal then makes up into a scrapbook which the children can keep. Ours will have a world map, maps of countries etc. as well as the journals to see what we can learn as the flat travellers go on their adventures.”

You can sign up to this Yahoo group to get involved.

5 Dangerous things you should let your kids do!

Posted on May 22, 2008
Filed Under Free | 1 Comment

There is a new video on Ted Talks about 5 Dangerous things you SHOULD let your kids do!.

I loved this!! How many have you let your kids do?

Photographic treasure hunt

Posted on April 15, 2008
Filed Under Activity, Free | 1 Comment

I got the inspiration for this treasure hunt from a blog I read* ages ago, and this is my version of it. Geography for Kids This geography activity develops map skills and observation. You do need some time to set it up, but it can be adapted to any age or skill level. The purpose of the activity is to hunt for photographed details along a pre-determined route.

Materials Needed

A map of the area. How large a map depends on the age of your children. Small children will find your garden or neighbourhood fine (you could even draw up the plan yourself) – or use a street map of the nearest town for older children.

A camera

A some time without the children!!

Decide on a route and walk around photographing details of the journey. Small unusual details are best – an unusual brick or damaged piece of fencing. You need to choose things that will still be there when the children walk the trail. Make notes as you go so you remember where and what each photograph shows.
Prepare the hunt by printing out the photographs in order. For an easy hunt, mark the route on the map and add numbers corresponding to the photographs at certain points– when the children get to the marked reference point they have to search for the detail you have photographed.For a harder hunt, use an orienteering map or street map and give only the grid references of each photo. You could ask the children to decide which photograph is relevant at that point, or organize the photos into the correct order.

We thought this was a great idea. It makes you much more observant – I have noticed small details in my town that I would never have noticed before.

*If the idea originated from your blog then please contact me – I would love to give you credit for this (but I can’t remember who you are!).

Make a trading card game

Posted on April 8, 2008
Filed Under Activity, Free | 1 Comment

If you enjoyed making your own top trumps game then you may be interested in this neat way to make a trading game.

You upload your own pictures for each trading card and add your details, then save the finished card to your PC and print it out. Either make a full deck, or add to an existing pack.

We haven’t really got into trading games yet, but I can see mine wanting to invent a whole new card game of their own with this!

« go back — keep looking »